The brothers were particularly quiet to each other. It wasn’t uncommon given you’ll eventually run out of things to talk about. But this was different. Both had strange encounters recently and neither were willing to broach the subject.

  Nate even took a shower after cooking dinner. He hadn’t crashed like he normally would putting Ted on edge. He always thought his brother was dealing with more than he was telling him. He kept the things he was hearing from Renee a secret. He had an odd compulsion to not tell Nate.

  Uncertain of whether it was truly about helping him or that he was getting close with her. Nevertheless. Nate was already dealing with so much he couldn’t make him deal with school stuff. Not more school stuff at least.

  For his part the older brother was keeping secrets. In the end that was his job. Keep Teddy safe and that meant pushing out the demented world circling around him. He would even kill for him, what were a few ghosts?

  When Nate arrived at the Flick-and-Go Mandy was just outside the backdoor with a cigarette in her hand. She was bent low, her knees pulled into her chest which in turn pushed out against her purple uniform. Her round wide eyes whirled around and locked onto Nate.

  Nate took a long look at her. His mind was foggy with everything happening. She’d been there when that Paladin had come knocking. Should she also know what happened? He felt off looking at her now. The past few months, years really he’d never even given her the time of day. Yet, here she was still following him around.

  She’d gotten her hair permanently dyed Lavender and wore sharp angled makeup. If he asked her for help in the first place with Teddy, would everything have turned out different? Her father was the mayor of the town.

  Her father might have gotten them all arrested but he’s also the reason they didn’t get into trouble. Ending up with a warning, rather than in prison. Would it have been better to exploit her? Teddy would be living a better life, but what kind of person would that make him?

  As his thoughts swirled in his mind he stared at her intently. Noticing his look she straightened a bit. She pushed out her chest a little more while batting her eyes at him. Mandy wasn’t an idiot, she knew that she’d ruined things with Nate a long time ago. However, she also loved him to the point of obsession. She knew it but that didn’t make it healthy.

  It was like an itch in the back of her head. She just couldn’t ignore it. Every time she had it would come back stronger. For now it was being scratched just being around him. Was it so bad for her to seek him out above all else?

  Given her fathers position he’d offered to send her to a big named college. There weren’t but a handful left. Each was harder to enter than the last. The institutions were now back to being a guarantee of success. From what her father said they’d floundered for so many years but now it meant something. She could still hear the disappointment in her fathers voice when she’d said she’d wait a while before going.

  “Do you really want to throw your life away in a nothing town like ours? I’m giving you a future and you want to ruin it for a boy?”

  Of the two Nate broke out of his thoughts first and walked up to her. He took the cigarette from her hand. He took a deep long drag. Mandy’s face twisted in shock. It burnt to the filter and he put it out in the ash tray. There were more than a few smokers who worked here. Though it was a nearly dead custom.

  With a deep exhale he blew the smoke out along with a short stint of coughing. Mandy the whole time was stunned in place. Amongst the gang it was a bit of a game to try to get Nate to do something bad. Sure, place a fight in front of him and he’d be all for it. It was the rest he never touched. Drinking, drugs, and even other women. He’d never do it and said it was a bad example to set.

  “Why would you?”

  She stammered out this was not the Nate she knew and it worried her. That itch in her mind grew stronger. That time when things went really bad he’d acted a bit like this reckless, starting to lose control. The control is what she wanted out of him and this was not it.

  “*COUGH* I hate those things.”

  He spoke with a curl of his lip and squatted down in front of Mandy. He had to admit his eyes just for a moment were pulled to her chest. She’d still been pushing them out. Snapping back into focus he looked her deep in the eyes.

  “Why do you smoke?”

  She felt like crumbling. It wasn’t a question he hadn’t asked before, but it was the way he asked it. More a command than a question. He knew her answer but she hesitated to give it. It was like if she told him what he knew in that moment she’d be setting him off on the wrong path.

  “I.. I smoke because it's the last thing I remember about my mother. I just want to feel that memory again.”

  She was honest and hated herself for it. That gut twisting pain inside when you know that you’ve royally fucked up. On the other hand this was Nate and to her he was the world. The last of her world not owned by her father, not controlled by her. He was a stallion wild and free.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “I can’t remember what she smells like, not even what she looks like anymore. Except when something is burning. Then I can remember the way she looked, the way she smelled everything. But I think of you when I smell cigarettes.”

  They both knew who he meant.

  Nate leaned in and kissed Mandy. Nate was angry and Mandy knew it. This is often how it would go: he would vent to her and she’d talk everything out with him. They’d not done that in over two years, not since his Dad died and he re-doubled his effort to be clean. To wash out all of their old thuggery. To wash her out.

  Mandy felt that little part of herself. The part that loved Nate more than wanting to be with him scream but just as she always did she turned it a deaf ear. They pulled apart panting.

  “You shouldn’t have to think of that.”

  Mandy said her hand stroked his cheek tenderly. Nate stood taking the cigarette carton with him as he did so. He stared into the sky and then threw them away.

  “Don’t smoke anymore. It’s bad for your health.”

  He entered the building with his own emotions in turmoil. He was still only 16 and the stress of it all was getting to him. He’d nearly gone back to Mandy, his old outlet. She had been closer than anyone, his one place of safety. He’d drowned in her smothering love once. How good it had felt back then.

  The rest of the shift was spent in an awkward silence between the two. It had been a good distraction in the moment for Nate. Honestly the rest of the shift made it easier to not think about anything. He got to handle what should be a normal teen problem: Love. That wouldn’t last long.

  The morning came, for once when Teddy headed out for school Nate got to sleep. It was an uncomfortable feeling having not slept well for months. An odd feeling but welcome none the less. Just before noon he woke up and headed to the 4G’s.

  He waited for Jeb to get back from the work site, planting himself under an area of blue peeking out from behind yellow. Just a hint of red circled the outside. The mid-day sun was warm during the colder season. It drove out the cold trying to press into his bones. He couldn’t feel pain but the heat and cold still remained.

  The all too familiar low hum heralding Jeb’s arrival came to a stop just in front of him. The man's orcish face pushed out of the window with a smile. Dark sun glasses pushed down tight on his head.

  “Ready to Bust some Ghosts?”

  He was in a rather good mood. Why wouldn’t he be? All he had to do was drive to the location, it was Nate who’d be placing his neck on the line. Breathing deeply he joined Jeb in the front of the vehicle.

  As they rumbled down the road Jeb took the opportunity to blather about everything going on in his life. From the most mundane, such as being out of tooth paste that morning, to the personal.

  “You know I just don’t know what it is with women. One day she'd be all happy talking about the bag I bought her. The next would you believe it she says I’m not man enough to be with her. She says that I don’t care for her enough. What more care could I give her? I get her anything she wants. It's like someone is putting ideas in her head.”

  Him talking about his wife made Nate think about Mandy. Who’d he’d pretty much used as an emotional outlet just last night. It was in stark contrast to how Jeb was being treated. Talk about not caring enough he’d treated her like nothing and she was fine with it. That thought made him angrier still just at himself.

  It also was not lost on Nate that Kent was clearly saddling up for a full pass on Mrs. Henderman. If he hadn’t already done so. He’d feel bad for Jeb if not for, well, the whole of his existence.

  “What do you think? I know you're young, but it could be a good perspective to have.”

  “Women are trouble and being with them makes it double.”

  Nate gave a weak response not feeling in the bonding mood given everything going on.

  “Come now. Don’t say that look at all the good parts that they have. Like their personality, or or… Their butts and boobs work too.”

  Nate responded with a dry smile.

  “You got anyone in your life, kid?”

  He could have ignored the question and just not said anything. Something in Nate however wouldn’t let him do so. It was like he needed to defend her even if she wasn’t his to defend.

  “Kind of. She’s really stubborn and won’t let go. But she's about the best ear to have whenever you have a problem. She's even better when you just want to be yourself.”

  Jeb raised an eyebrow thought for a moment then gave out a bit of a laugh.

  “Haha, yeah. That's how it was with my wife and me. All those years ago when I was a strapping young man. I still had most of my swine back then. Used to walk tall and straight just like dad taught me. Kind of like you kid. Sure, I wasn’t as imposing but I could at least pull my own weight. She’d giggle so much when I would pick her up and twirl her in the fresh morning air. We’d go for long walks at night to…”

  He glanced at Nate with a bit of sheepish grin.

  “To a, gaze at the moon. We’d sit there for hours looking at its old fragments playing catch with the moonlight. Have you ever had moments like that kid?”

  “Yeah, we used to sneak out like that often. We also used to fuck a lot.”

  Nate cracked a joke at Jeb's expense. The man laughed heartily, his jowls smacking up and down as he did so.

  “Sorry, yeah that’s usually what we were really doing.”

  Jeb gave a kind smile the first of its kind that Nate had ever seen. A pit formed in his stomach as he thought of Kent. He thought he could learn not to hate Jeb. Was it really ok for Kent to be going after married women? He even considered saying something, but thought better of it.

  It had felt more fun all those years before, Kent’s chasing. Now it felt different, he was actually succeeding. They already knew what it could do to a marriage. To Mandy’s family.

  “You're not too bad, kid. Just got a tough exterior.”

  Nate took the box out as the car started to slow. In front of them in the middle of a row of houses was the building.

  3295 Bolten ST.